In the second episode of 2K’s making of video series for Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, developer 2K Australia and members of Gearbox explain what took them off of Pandora and onto its moon, Elpis.

According to franchise director Matt Armstrong, 2K Australia pointed out to Gearbox the story potential in explaining how Pandora’s moon went from being solid and seamless (figuratively speaking) in Borderlands 1 to cracked and surging with lava beds and rivers and shadowed by the Hyperion space station in Borderlands 2. It was also, Armstrong, a location Borderlands’ fans expressed interest in going to.

By setting The Pre-Sequel on the moon, the developers realized they were afforded the opportunity to expand upon the Borderlands gameplay recipe, namely in its sense of verticality and momentum courtesy of a low-gravity environment. This would ultimately inform the much-lofted “butt slam” as an attack to get characters back down from a high, but slow, floating apex after a jump.

The above video also contains a generous amount of freeze rays in action, if that’s more your thing.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel launches on Windows PC, Mac OS X, Linux, PS3, and Xbox 360 October 14 in North America, October 17 in Europe.

Chris Holzworth has wanted to write about games all his life. He first cut his teeth writing for enthusiast sites such as RPGFan, and after writing for just about every other enthusiast website he could came across, wound up as EGM's east coast news correspondent (read: editorial intern) before relocating to LA to serve as news editor. You can follow his rants about storytelling on Twitter @manadrive.[Meet the rest of the crew]